


Because of the Layers

by hazelandglasz, thelilacfield



Series: Because of the Layers Verse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Funny, M/M, Shrek!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelandglasz/pseuds/hazelandglasz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, two Tumblr writers talked about the disparity between the original text of the scene between Kurt and Blaine (“Because of the layers? - Because of the layers”) and the French dubbing (“Because I dress like an onion? - Shut up you turn me on”)</p><p>And we launched on the onion and layers similarity with Shrek</p><p>Here is the product of that discussion !</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because of the Layers

_Once upon a time there was a handsome young prince who lived in a shining castle. But he had an enchantment upon him of a fearful sort, which could only be broken by love’s first kiss. He was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire-breathing dragon. Many brave knights had attempted to free him from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed. He waited in the dragon’s keep, in the highest room of the tallest tower, for his true love, and true love’s first kiss._

***

For years, the surrounding schools had nicknamed William McKinley High School the swamp of Ohio’s schools. It was a little unfair. Maybe they weren’t as successful in sport as Carmel, maybe they didn’t have elaborate uniforms like Dalton, maybe the bullies of the school were like a plague of flies, but they had their pride and one day they would rise out of the mist and be on top again. This Kurt was confident in.

Being a part of the school’s choir was the only way in his mind - only they could achieve success, enough of it to earn their school a new reputation. And it was not an easy life, to be part of the most hated and hunted group of the most detested school in Ohio.

Sometimes, Kurt thought that it was hilarious: inside the school that had the worst reputation, among the group that had the worst cool factor, he somehow managed to be the focus of all that negativity. But Kurt Hummel didn’t need anybody’s approval: wrapped in his knowledge that he was better than those - those - those peasants, he knew that he had what it took to be a king in his swamp.

 

Naturally, his peace and quiet in his own little world couldn’t last, because the universe had something against the idea of his peace and happiness.

One fine morning, while he was enjoying his morning coffee - enjoying both the drink and the protection the cup offered - Kurt almost walked over someone running in the hallway. “Hey!” he exclaimed, raising his cup to shield it from the newcomer. “Watch where you’re going!”

The girl looked at him with wide eyes and opened her mouth, but before she could start apologizing or explain what she was doing training for a marathon in the corridor, multiple voices were heard shouting on the other end.

“Come on, we can get her!”

Well, Kurt might be someone who knew how to protect himself and stay out of trouble’s way, but there was no way he would leave a defenceless girl by herself.

Now, one thing you need to know about Kurt Hummel: he might have been hated, exiled even inside of the school, but no one would ever dare to lay a finger on him. Kurt knew that it was because they thought that gay was a contagious disease, but since it provided some level of protection against the very thing they were planning to do to that poor girl, he would take it any day.

That was why when they saw that it was him standing between them and their target, most of the boys started walking backwards.

Their leader, the captain of the hockey team, with the most ridiculous hairdo Kurt had ever seen - and in this place, that was saying something - stepped forward nonetheless.

“Step aside, fairy,” he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking - and failing miserably, “let us get to the loser and we’ll leave you in peace.”

Kurt cocked one eyebrow at him, smirking as he took a thoughtful pose. “Oh really? You and what army?”

The captain looked behind him, expecting the rest of his goons, only to find dust in their place and the faint echo of their running steps in the distance.

Looking back at Kurt, who was looking expectantly at him, he wasted no time before tucking his tail and his ridiculous mullet and running off.

Kurt let out a mocking laugh and went to go back to his previous business, as in, enjoying his coffee but the short girl obviously had other ideas in mind.

“Can I say something?” she asked breathlessly, “That was really, really, really, impressive back there!”

Kurt sighed and turned to face her. “Are you talking to-” he started as he turned around, but found an empty spot in her place, “-me?”

He looked up and down the corridor to make sure that the girl was not hiding somewhere before turning around, back in his original path, and almost jumped out of his skin when he came face to face with her.

“Whoa!” he did exclaim though, not caring if it made him look less of a threat. The girl was short but she was fast, that much was certain.

“Yes,” she said with a wide smile and a slightly manic look in her eyes, “I was talking to you. Can I tell you that you were great! Those jocks! They thought they were so great! Then you showed up and bam!” she exclaimed, making a booming motion with her hands, “They’re tripping over themselves like little kittens in the wild. It really warmed my heart to witness that,” she added, a satisfied smile on her face and not the slightest hint that she might have been out of breath.

Kurt raised his eyebrows and decided to act like he didn’t care. “Oh, that’s great,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain, “really.”

Rolling her neck, she skipped to keep up with his long strides in the hallway. “I gotta tell you, it feels good to be free of that particular pressure,” she said, her voice taking a dreamy quality.

Kurt looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Then why don’t you go and celebrate with your own friends?” he asked, feigning a cheerfulness he didn’t really feel. “Hmm?”

Her brown eyes widened and she looked lost for a minute. “Bu-but I don’t have any friends,” she said, voice small and showing the fear and vulnerability Kurt had caught on when she had run into him, but it was gone in a flash. “And I am telling you, Kurt Hummel, I am notgoing back out there by myself!” she exclaimed, and Kurt took a small step back. Then her eyes sparkled and he got even more scared. “Wait a minute,” she said, waving her fingers in his face, “I have an idea!”

Kurt wasn’t sure he really wanted to hear it, but with her voice, he didn’t have much of a choice.

“I’ll stick with you! Your obvious fabulousness scares them away, my obvious talent makes me better than them and they know it, together we would be unstoppable!”

Kurt stopped right there and then and slowly turned on his heels, cocking his eyebrows and turning his best glare on.

The girl opened wide eyes and smiled even more brightly.

“Ooooh,” she cooed, “that’s really scary! If the glare doesn’t work, the eyebrows are a killer! It reminds me of a movie my dads showed me when I was younger, abou-mhph,” she went on until Kurt covered her mouth. Under his fingertips, he could feel her lips still moving, and he incredulously removed it. “… then I tried to tweeze my own but luckily my Dad stopped me and said ‘Rachel Berry, that’s not the proper way to do it!’”

Kurt took a deep, calming breath to try and not strangle the girl - Rachel, good, he won’t remember it - on the spot. “Why - are you - following me?!” he asked between gritted teeth.

Rachel put her hands on her waist. “Oh, I’ll tell you why,” she said, before throwing her long locks behind her and taking a deep breath.

_“Cause I’m all alooone,_

_There’s no one here besiiiide me,_

_My problems have all gone,_

_There’s no one to deriiiiide meee,_

_But you gotta have faith…”_

“Stop singing!” Kurt exclaimed before rubbing his hand over his face. He was stuck with the annoying midget, wasn’t he? “Jeez, no wonder you don’t have any friends,” he mumbled under his breath as he threw the empty coffee cup in the trashcan.

Rachel once again ran to catch up with him. “Wow,” she said, grabbing his arm to link it with hers, “only a true friend would be that brutally honest.”

Kurt looked up, hoping for some help from a deity he didn’t believe in, before shaking off her grip on his arm to gesture at himself.

“Look at me, little Berry,” he started, enunciating to the maximum to make sure that she would understand, “what - do - you - see?”

Rachel looked at him, up and down and up again, and cocked her head to the side. “A very tall boy?”

“No!” he exclaimed, opening his arms and revealing the purple tartan Marc Jacobs sweater he had snatched on eBay and was wearing under his trench coat. “I’m gay! Fabulously gay! You know, straighten him up and stay away arrgh,” he said, mimicking words he had heard at least once in his life. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

Rachel shook her head, a Mona Lisa smile on her face. “Nope.”

“Really?” Kurt asks with a confused frown.

“Really, really,” Rachel replies, putting her hand on his crossed arm. “I have two gay dads, and I already like you.”

“Oh,” Kurt replies, deflating a little and letting Rachel pulling him forward, toward her locker that incidentally happened to be right next to his own.

“You know what I like about you, Kurt?” she asked as she pulled books and notebooks from her locker while Kurt did the same. “You have that je ne sais quoi, that ‘I-don’t-care-what-nobody-thinks-of-me’ attitude about you and I appreciate that. I respect that,” she added with a firm nod of her head, making her ruling final.

Or so Kurt supposed.

He opened his own locker, letting Rachel get a glimpse of the various collages and montages he had made to make this locker his home. She delicately wrinkled her nose before Kurt turned his head back to her with a questioning raised eyebrow. “It’s amazing what one can do with a small budget. I like your locker. That’s a nice locker,” she said with a sheepish smile.

As Kurt slammed his locker closed, Rachel frowned. “You don’t let a lot of people in, do you?”

Kurt glared at her. “I like my privacy,” he replies as coldly as he could, walking away from the locker in the hope that she would take the hint and go to her own classes.

What’s the use of hope anyway?

“You know, I do too. That’s another thing we have in common. I truly hate it when you got somebody in your face. You’ve been trying to give them a hint, and they just won’t leave and then there’s that awkward silence…”

As an awkward silence stretched between them, Rachel took a step closer to Kurt. “Let me be your partner,” she pleaded.

Kurt’s eyes widened so wide he thought they would pop out of his head. “Come again?”

“Can I please be your partner in the classes we have together?” she asked again, batting her eyelashes.

Kurt beamed at her. “But of course!”

“Really?” she asked with wide eyes and an even wider smile.

“No.”

And there went the smile. “Please!” she shouted out, putting her hands on his chest, “I don’t want to be alone in there, in those classes, and that cafeteria, and those hallways, please! You don’t know what it’s like to be treated like a freak!”

Kurt cocked his head to the side at that, trying to convey how ridiculous she was being, but it only fueled her argument. “Well, maybe you do - and that’s why we have to stick together!”

Fearing for the state of his Marc Jacobs sweater, on its way to being crumpled by her tiny - but strong - fists, Kurt raised two placating hands. “Okay, okay!” he replies, smoothing down his sweater once she let him go, “but for one week only!”

Rachel put her head in her hands with a teary smile. “Thank you thank you you’re not going to regret it, we’re going to be the best of friends, we’re going to gossip about everybody, and tomorrow morning, I’m bringing vegan waffles!”

Kurt rolled his eyes and tried to bypass her to get in his class. “Do you mind?” he finally said with an exasperated sigh.

“But I don’t go to that class, where am I supposed to go?” Rachel asked with an hopeful glint in her brown eyes.

“I don’t know, outside!” Kurt finally shouted, slamming the class door behind him - not quickly enough to miss Rachel saying in her pitiful voice: “Oh okay that’s fine I guess, I’ll just be sitting by myself outside, I guess, you know. By myself, outside.  _I’m all alone…there’s no one here beside me_ …” She even included a little sniffle to make it so much more pathetic.

When did his life become so complicated again?

***

Mercedes pondered how her life had taken such a drastic turn in such a short time.

One moment, she was getting used to be the star of the Gingerbread House show, with her beautiful coppery buttons that looked like butterscotch, and the next moment, she was a - reluctant - guest in the Warblers castle.

Dalton sounded inviting at first, but the moment she informed the Warblers’ unofficial leader that she wanted to go back to the Coffee House/Club, his green eyes had ominously darkened.

“I want to know how he does it!”

And back to her present situation.

Once again, she had been taken to the room that featured heavily in her nightmares, stuck in the least comfortable chair in the room, forced to sit and face him and endure his questioning.

“I told you already, I don’t know, and even if I did, you could bite me!” she snarled, spitting in his face.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Sebastian replied with a smirk, slowly wiping his face clean, “maybe you’ll remember a little better if I free you of those,” he added as he started pulling one of her beloved buttons off the jacket in his hands.

“No!” she cried out, tears filling her eyes. “Not the buttons!”

As he stopped pulling on the buttons but started shredding the jacket from the inside out, she sighed, letting the tears roll on her cheeks. “Fine, I’ll tell you,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Do you know…the soul man?”

“The soul man?” Sebastian repeated with a cocked eyebrow, the shredded jacket in his hand held high.

“The soul man,” she confirmed with a nod.

“Yes, of course I know the soul man,” he replies with a dismissing wave of his hand. “The one who’s got a truckload of lovin’?”

Mercedes nodded, hoping that he was starting to understand. “Well, when he starts lovin’, he just can’t stop,” she explained.

“Because he’s a soul man?” Sebastian asked, demanding a confirmation.

“Because he’s a soul man!” she exclaimed, slumping back in her chair and wincing at the hard material hitting her back.

“See,” Sebastian said with a would-be-soft smile if Mercedes didn’t know better, laying the jacket on Mercedes’ lap, “wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Sebastian, a word?”

In the doorframe, a man with a stern look on his face was standing, his arms crossed over his Warbler-clad chest, looking expectantly at him and a white cat wrapping its fluffy tail around his ankles.

Sebastian sighed and walked away from Mercedes, throwing her a wink as he closed the door.

“What do you want, Hunter?” he asked once they were alone.

“Just checking that you still have your head in the game, Smythe,” the taller man said in a drawl, a smirk stretching his lips. “Because that’s not like that,” he added, pointing to the closed door with his thumb, “that you are going to secure your captaincy of the Warblers.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes - he was fully aware of what needed to be done but he didn’t intend to go anywhere near that place. However, his silence was Hunter’s incentive to go on and drill his advice in Sebastian’s head a little more.

Though Sebastian stopped listening after the fifty-seventh time.

“You are not a born-Warbler, with the blood right to be one of us, even less our captain,” Hunter said, not aware of Sebastian moving his lips in time with his words, “but you have the talent to make a perfect captain - you just need the validation, and there is only one way to get it-”

“-save and kiss Blaine Warbler, I know that, Clarington!” Sebastian concluded for him, well aware of his flaws and his only solution to finally get his hands on the premium choir.

The Warblers were royalty, and only the finest would do for Sebastian Oliver Smythe.

“Intruders!”

Both men turned their heads to face the running and shouting Warbler - both wildly uncharacteristic of a man worthy of the blazer.

“We have intruders in the school,” he repeated, coming to an halt in front of them and smoothing his hands over the blazer.

Hunter leaned forward to arrange his tie, slightly crooked at an odd angle (10° out of regulation) before frowning. “Are you sure they are not prospective students? Dalton does attract all kind of students…” he asked, his voice turning proud and smug in the end but the other boy shook his head.

“They try too hard to hide themselves, sir and - one of them…” the boy hesitated before clearing his throat. “One of them is a girl,” he added in a whisper.

Sebastian and Hunter gasped.

A girl at Dalton? The horror!

***

Kurt still wondered why the hell he had accepted to let Rachel come with him to spy on the competition. First of all, there was no way she could possibly pass for a boy, even in the proper attire, and he had only one blazer that could be taken for something approaching the Dalton Academy blazer.

From afar.

In the dark.

By someone very shortsighted.

Anyway - in her grey leggings and large, electric blue jacket, there was no possible way for her to appear incognito in the marbled halls.

Second of all, his offer to go and see for himself the so-called royalty of show choir was far from selfless.

Even if he hid it pretty well, the constant ostracism Kurt was going through at McKinley was starting to get to him and he had heard rumors about the Academy.

Rumors that it could be a haven for - for people like him. Even Mercedes, one of his dearest friends, had said so, and she wasn’t even like him.

So what if he wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak? What if he wanted to see for himself if those high stone walls could shelter him from mockery and defiance, offer him a chance to be himself, truly himself, without that mask of arrogance and coldness?

Given the way some blazer-clad students were suddenly surrounding them, Kurt felt like he had his answer: those rumors were too good to be true, as usual.

“What are you doing here?” one of them asked, his eyes bulging in his face as he took Kurt’s shorts and brilliant red tie.

“You don’t belong here,” another said with a snarl addressed to Rachel who cowered behind him.

As they all nodded in unison, Kurt rolled his eyes. “That’s how you welcome prospective students?” he asked, trying a ruse.

“You? A prospective student? I don’t think so,” a voice mocked him and a silence fell on the assembled students.

Kurt turned his head to look at the newcomer. The man was around his age, tall, charming in a smarmy kind of way, and more importantly, knowing that he had some charms and using it.

“What is that? It’s revolting,” the guy said with a grimace, pointing at Kurt’s scarf or at Rachel’s pants, Kurt couldn’t be sure and since his scarf was McQueen’s…

“Hey, that’s not very nice,” he replied, wrapping an arm around Rachel’s shoulder. “It may be Forever 21, but it’s not that bad!”

“Indeed,” the guy commented, looking down at them and he looked at the students who were still as statues. “Warblers, let’s show them how we deal with intruders shall we?”

The Warblers turned to circle the two of them, and Kurt could feel Rachel shaking beside him.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright, just -” he whispered, but he looked up as the boys started harmonizing. “- what the hell?”

Breaking the circle, the Warblers lined up, with Smarmy at their head, and started singing.

“ _Welcome to Dalton, such a perfect school,_

_Here we have some rules_

_Let us lay them down_

_Don’t make waves, stay in line_

_And we’ll get along fine_

_Dalton is a perfect place_

_Please don’t be crass_

_Shine your shoes, wipe your…face_

_Dalton is, Dalton is,_

_Dalton is a perfect plaaaace_.”

Rachel couldn’t help herself and started clapping while Kurt could feel his eye twitching from the downright cheesiness of it all.

“Could you do that again?” Rachel asked and some of the boys smiled in a proud way, but Kurt practically slammed his hand on her mouth.

“No - just, no.”

The leader took a step toward them, arms crossed over his chest. “See, that’s what it means to be a Warbler : perfect poise, perfect class, perfect harmony, gentlemanly looks,” he enumerated, pushing a finger into Kurt’s chest with each so-called quality, “which automatically disqualifies you, fairy,” he added with a smirk and Kurt straightened his shoulders.

“I’d rather be called an ogre than a fairy,” Kurt retorted, batting the leader’s hand away. “And besides, if you’re such a gentleman, shouldn’t you introduce yourself to us?”

Some of the Warblers threw judging looks at their leader at that lack of etiquette and the tall boy turned pink. “I’m Sebastian Smythe, Captain -”

“Ahem.”

Sebastian’s flush deepened. “Soon to be Captain of the Warblers, leader of the most perfect choir in the whole state - and you are?” he asked with a grimace of disgust.

Kurt stood taller. “I’m Kurt Hummel, member of the New Directions, student at McKinley High, and with my acute ‘fairy’ vision, I spot heel pieces that may be related to you and a compensation problem?” he shot back, arching one eyebrow and smirking as he pointed to Sebastian’s feet.

A snicker came from the lines of Warblers, interrupted when another tall boy with a sharp jaw pulled one of the boys aside with a severe frown.

Kurt shook his head - individuality really was squashed in this place. “I can’t believe Mercedes told me that this would be a good place for me,” he mumbled, not low enough to keep his words from Sebastian’s ears.

Immediately a plan started forming in the Warbler’s head. Leaning toward the Warbler standing the closest to him, he murmured something and the other boy ran as dapperly out of the room as he could.

“What should we do to them, Sebastian?” another boy asked, looking calm and a little shy - though he did send a smile in Rachel’s way when Sebastian turned his back on him to face the pair once again.

“Intruders are to be thrown out,” he started and Rachel let out a sigh of relief, “but spies, on the other hand…”

Rachel gasped and against his own will, Kurt took a step to put himself in front of her. “What are you going to do? Beat us up?”

Several gasps came from the lined-up boys and Kurt looked at them with raised eyebrows. As for Sebastian, he started chuckling.

“See, that’s why you cannot be and will never be a Warbler, ogre,” he said, his chuckles turning into a dark growl. “We don’t go around beating people up - how unrefined,” he added with a scrunch of his nose. “On the other hand, you owe m- us, now.”

“Owe you?” Kurt repeated, his disbelief obvious on his face. “I don’t think so, Mister I’m a Meerkat leading a bunch of dodos and I need to be taller to make up for a lack of someth- Mercedes?” he ranted but cut himself when he saw his best friend pushed in the room.

Mercedes had tear tracks on her cheeks and she looked up at Kurt. “Kurt!” she exclaimed, reaching for him. “No matter what he asks, don’t do it, don’t do anything for humph!” she tried to tell him, until the Warbler that brought her in covered her mouth with his hand.

“Now, where were we? Oh right, you owing me something and me needing something - such a conundrum, isn’t it?” Sebastian said, putting one hand on Mercedes’ shoulder.

“Let her go,” Kurt said calmly - too calmly. “Let her go now.”

“What would you do that could convince me to do just that - Miss Jones is such a pleasure to have around!”

Mercedes tried to shake her head behind the Warbler’s hand but Kurt could see that there was no way out of the deal Sebastian was offering, no matter how reluctant he was to make any kind of deal with such a disgusting individual.

“I would do anything for her.”

“Just like I thought - pathetic fairy, trying to play bad boy, really,” Sebastian said nonchalantly with a delicate snort. Some of the Warblers managed a fake laughter to placate him and Sebastian turned back to Kurt, completely dismissing Rachel.

“I’m sending you on a quest,” Sebastian said and most of the assembled boys looked stunned.

“A quest?” Kurt repeated with a sigh.

“A quest. Go on and bring me - us back our prized Warbler and you’ll get your friend back.”

“And you won’t harm her any more?” Kurt asked - he had to make sure that while he was gone, Mercedes would be fine.

“Warbler’s honors,” Sebastian replied, putting his hand on his chest. “Give us back our prince and she’ll be returned to you in perfect condition, down to the last brass buttons.”

“And my so-called debt?”

“Consider it repaid.”

The two boys looked at each other in a battle of will, and with one more reassuring look toward Mercedes, Kurt put his hands on his hips.

“Where exactly is that prized prince Warbler?”

***

“Let me get this straight,” Rachel said, trying to keep up with Kurt’s long strides as they walked away from the Dalton’s walls, “you’re going to confront the Vocal Adrenaline, who are, by the way, the most feared show choir in the state, rescue that prince, just so Sebastian will give you back a friend you only don’t have because he kept her captive in the first place. Is that about right?”

“You know, when people tell you to keep quiet, you really should listen,” Kurt says forlornly, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

“I don’t get it,” Rachel retorted, seemingly ignoring his comment, “why didn’t you unleash some of that fierce and fabulous rage I’ve seen you displaying at our school? That would have convinced him to let go of your friend and we would be on our way back home!”

Kurt stopped walking right there and then, pressing his fingers to his eyes. “Oh I know what,” he replies, voice sounding dreamy and far away. “Maybe I could have told him to stuff himself with his tie, gotten their stupid polyester jackets on pikes, gotten a pair of scissors, cut their stupid velvet curtains and make a jacket out of them. Does that sound good to you?” he listed, ending his speech with a toothy, too big to be honest smile and Rachel took a step back.

“Uh, no, not really, no,” she replied, looking sheepish.

Kurt nodded once before turning to walk away. “For your information, there’s a lot more to being gay than people think,” he added, trying to keep his voice from getting wobbly.

“Example?” Rachel asked, half-teasingly and half-genuinely curious.

“Example…Well, for one, gays are not boxes, there are more than four sides to them, just like for anybody else,” Kurt replied, trying to find the proper way to explain. “Being gay is like…the perfect outfit!” he finally exclaimed, feeling like he had the proper explanation.

Rachel looks at him and frowns. “They’re expensive?”

“Yes- No!” Kurt exclaimed, shaking his head.

“They make you cry because you can’t have them?” Rachel tried again, cocking her head to the side.

“No!”

Rachel stopped walking, deep in her thoughts before she snapped her fingers. “They’re always better with an animal pattern on!”

Kurt closed his eyes, counted to three before letting it all out. “No!” he shouted. “Layers!”

Rachel’s mouth shaped into a perfect ‘o’.

“Perfect outfits have layers, gay men have layers. Get it? We both have layers!” he finished with a sharp nod, turning on his heels to start walking again.

Rachel skipped behind him. “You both have laaaaayers,” she repeated, as if finding the meaning of life. With a frown, she hooked her arm around Kurt’s. “You know, not everybody can appreciate a perfect outfit, though,” she said pensively. “But cake!” she suddenly exclaimed, and Kurt felt like if she kept on shouting without a warning he was going to have a early heart attack, “everybody loves cakes - and cakes have layers, too,” she added with a proud smile.

“I don’t care what everybody likes,” Kurt retorted with a cocked eyebrow. “Gay men are not pieces of cake,” he added with a snicker.

“You know what else everybody likes?” Rachel asked, as if not listening to him - and she most definitely wasn’t listening,“parfait. Have you ever met a person that would refuse a parfait? Parfaits are delicious,” she concluded with a smile and a smack of her lips.

“No!” Kurt shouted, trying to shake her hold from his arm, “you dense, irritating, miniature beast of burden! Gays are like perfect outfits! End of story,” he finally mumbled, burying his fists in the pocket of his jacket.

Rachel looked at him, and she could see he was already walking slowlier. With a soft smile, she walked faster until she was by his side.

“Parfaits are the most delicious thing in the word, though,” she commented, winking at him when he turned his head to look at her.

“If I get you a parfait, will you promise to shut up?” Kurt asked, lacing his voice with boredom.

They weren’t anywhere near Carmel Castle, and he already wanted to throw Rachel in the nearest canyon, or, by default, gag her with his own scarf.

***

As they approached Carmel High, Rachel started to notice patches of glitter on the way and she called for Kurt’s attention.

“Oh, Kurt?” she called, recovering from a near slip into a puddle of face paint and glitter, “Did you do that? You could give me a warning, I could have fallen and broke my talent!”

Kurt turned to look at her, down to the glitter on the ground and then back to her with a smirk. “Believe me, Rachel, if I wanted you to slip, you would - warning or not,” he replied with a snicker, “but it wasn’t me - we must be getting closer to Carmel. Vocal Adrenaline are famous for using gemstones.”

He kept on walking, careful to avoid puddles and gemstones dust, while Rachel mumbled behind him about it being no gemstones nor rhinestones.

“Quiet.”

Rachel was about to shriek at Kurt that he couldn’t keep on talking to her this way when she followed his line of sight.

The buildings of Carmel High School stood in front of them, surrounded by groups of what looked like adoring Vocal Adrenaline fans, shaking red and orange fanions.

Kurt whistled appreciatively. “Sure, it’s big enough, but look at the security they need!” he said with a delicate snort and a giggle before taking another step toward the only empty entrance, the handicapped ramp - sure, they had to navigate around the groups and try to stay as discreet as they could if they wanted a chance at getting the Warbler, but it was their only chance.

“Uh, Kurt?” Rachel started, voice shaking with nerves. “Remember what you said about gay men having layers?”

Kurt hummed in reply, carefully watching at any potential opening in the crowd.

“Well, I have a confession to make,” she continued, gulping and wringing the hem of her jacket. “Girls like me, we don’t have layers - we only wear our fashion taste and our talent as our armor.”

“You don’t have any fashion sense,” Kurt observed, eyeing the blue monstrosity on Rachel’s shoulders.

She huffed in annoyance, before her eyes found the lava river and she gulped. “You know what I mean.”

“You can’t tell me you’re afraid of crowds!” Kurt said with a dismissive snort, only choking on it when he saw the look on Rachel’s face. “You do plan on becoming a Broadway star, don’t you? See this as…practice!”

A frown appeared on her face, as if she was not completely convinced. This was fine, he wasn’t completely convinced either.

“Come on, Rachel,” he finally said, taking her arm and linking it with his own, “I’m right here beside you, okay? For …”, he struggled to find the right word, “emotional support. We’ll just tackle this thing together one little baby step at a time!” he concluded, pulling her to follow him.

“Really?” Rachel asked, an unbelieving smile on her face - Kurt had never been so friendly before, maybe she had finally managed to crack his armor.

Kurt looked down at her with a sweet smile. “Really, really.”

***

Managing to get past the crowds had not been easy but now, here they were, inside the walls of Carmel and trying to determine the location of their lost Warbler.

Kurt looked around, trying to see if he could find a room that would welcome a preppy student like the other red and navy dodos from Dalton, but alas, there was no sign with big, block letters saying  **WARBLER THIS WAY**.

Rachel was not really helpful, listing the many things that could happen to them if they were found trespassing in the school, and “Can you imagine, if word gets out that we spied on two show choirs, we could be banned! The New Directions disbanded!”

Kurt rolled his eyes and closed his petticoat with determined fingers. “Let’s find the auditorium,” he said with a great authority before walking toward the stairs.

“How do you know the Warbler will be there?” Rachel asked, running after him.

“I have a feeling it’s where he’ll be,” Kurt replied shortly, climbing the stairs two by two.

***

Tentatively sliding the auditorium door open, Rachel breathed and stopped holding her jacket up around her face when she saw the room occupied by nothing but dust motes dancing in the spotlights blazing on the stage. Too hot, she slipped it off and left it neatly folded at the top of the stairs, ghosting her fingers reverently over the padded leather seats as she explored the grandiose auditorium.

If only McKinley’s stage was so beautiful and luxurious. She’d give anything to perform on a stage like this, if only Carmel would take someone hung with the obvious stench of McKinley, someone from an inferior group like the New Directions.

Hopefully, she and Kurt could build it up again, and have that dragon, Jesse St. James, groveling at their feet.

Her thoughts turned to Kurt, looking for the Warbler out there in the forbidden bowels of the school, and hoped he had the good sense to keep his identity concealed. If either of them were caught, it would be all too easy to trace them back to New Directions, and then they’d be in trouble.

She would have nothing then, nothing to pave her way to the bright lights of Broadway, because without being seen performing onstage with other people to make her talent burn even bright, she would never be spotted by directors and would have to claw her way to the top and fight against thousands of others trying to do the same and maybe never even make it.

Walking down the curving stair, the sound of her footsteps echoing in the silence, Rachel mounted the three short steps up onto the stage, the spotlight warming her as she shielded her eyes and looked around the room, imagining a waiting crowd in the stairs, waiting for the moment when she would open her mouth and fill the room with the sound of her voice. Closing her eyes, Rachel began to sing, the silence her only accompaniment:

“ _There’s a fire starting in my heart_

_Reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringing me out the dark_.”

She jumped when another voice joined hers, squinting against the searing spotlight to see a silhouette at the top of the stairs, a boy leaning casually on the archway leading into the stairs. As he sang back, her mind easily placed him as Jesse St. James, the revered leader of Vocal Adrenaline, and every competitive bone in her body strained to show him the talent his group was missing. Though he sang every line while she mulled everything over, she joined him for the chorus, pushing herself to be better, to make his eyes grow wide with amazement as he continued walking towards her, a casual smirk on his face.

“ _We could have had it all_

_Rolling in the deep_

_You had my heart inside of your hand_

_And you played it to the beat_.”

As Jesse climbed onto stage, circling her like he was the predator and she the prey, Rachel was struck by how good-looking he was, even knowing he was her enemy, and the man who had prevented so many from completing the task Kurt was attempting, the task they needed to complete to keep their secret safe and to get back Mercedes and her flawless, show-stopping ending to every song. She could sense their musical chemistry as he paused, posture relaxed and assured, and she stepped towards him, singing into his face and watching the flicker of surprise at her talent shoot across his face.

“ _Throw your soul through every open door_

_Count your blessings to find what you look for_

_Turn my sorrows into treasured gold_

_Pay me back in kind and reap just what you sow_.”

Jesse took her hand as they brought the song to a dramatic climax, pulling her close and giving her the benefit of an irresistible showman smile, her heart beating faster at his touch and the pull between them as the echo of their voices faded away and he said, “You must be Rachel Berry. Your cover of Don’t Rain On My Parade is stunning.”

“How do you know my name?” Rachel asked softly, completely aware he was flirting to try and distract her. Maybe if she went along with it, she could keep his attentions on her long enough for Kurt to rescue the Warbler.

And that plan had nothing to do with how handsome he was. Not a single step in it.

Not even the last resort of kissing him.

“I’ve been following your videos for a while now,” Jesse confessed. “I found one of my younger performers secretly watching your group’s performance of Push It during a rehearsal, so I threw him out, but you captured my attentions, so I looked you up. And I find you,” he laid a hand on her arm and leaned towards her, “fascinating.”

***

Kurt was going to lose his mind if he didn’t find that blasted Warbler, especially since he could hear Rachel in what sounded like a singing battle - he couldn’t leave her alone any longer.

“Here, birdy, birdy birdy…” he called out, a part of his brain berating him for such a stupid idea.

“ _You make me_

_Feel like I’m living a_

_Teenage dream_

_The way you turn me on_  - “Oh those lyrics are quite raunchy, aren’t they?”

Turning his head, Kurt followed the voice. Only a Warbler would be able to put that arrangement of Katy Perry together - and call it raunchy.

“ _I’ma get your heart racing in my skin-tight jeans_  - oh,” the boy who was singing in his perfect blazer and tie turned to face him. Standing in front of the window, he was in a chiaro oscuro that prevented Kurt from seeing his face.

“Are you the lost Warbler?” Kurt asked without preamble and the boy cocked his head to the side, smoothing down the blazer.

“I am Warbler Blaine, awaiting a knight so bold as to rescue me,” he replied and Kurt would consider listing the different qualities of his voice in some other time - and preferably in another location. 

“Isn’t that nice - let’s go!” he said, taking hold of the Warb- of Blaine’s hand as he started running. As they walked down the first flight of stairs, Blaine didn’t seem to grasp the urgency of the situation.

“Shouldn’t we exchange words of love, make it a wonderful, romantic moment?” he asked as they reached the landing above the auditorium.

Kurt turned to look at him once he checked that no one was in sight. “Had a lot of time to plan it out, did you?”

Blaine nodded, a graceful pink blush spreading on his cheeks and Kurt felt his own face heat up. “It will have to wait, we have to run to escape, I’m sure you understand that?”

“I do, But we have to savor this moment! You could recite an epic poem for me. A ballad? A sonnet! A limerick? Or something!” Blaine protested and Kurt rolled his eyes.

“I don’t do something,” he mumbled and Blaine let out a sigh.

“Can I at least know the name of my champion?” he asked softly and Kurt dropped his head.

“Kurt.”

Blaine wrinkled his nose with a frown. “I don’t know any Warbler called Kurt,” he whispered before looking back at Kurt who was stepping into a light. “Sir Kurt,” he repeated, a shy smile stretching his lips now.

“Yeah, yeah, Sir Kurt,” Kurt repeated, his voice on this side of mocking as he got ready to run once again, but a noise stopped him on his way to the doors.

“Rachel,” he whispered, feeling blood draining from his face.

***

Blaine didn’t know when his courageous knight would come to deliver him from Carmel, but he did know that the man would be a Warbler - of course - and that he would be his soulmate, the love if his life.

When Sir Kurt had barged in his chamber, his Warbler uniform no doubt hidden under his tight black coat, Blaine had been somehow surprised - he would remember such a fine gentleman for sure, wouldn’t he? Surely, Kurt would be the one lifting his curse and he could leave his…nocturnal alter-ego behind him in that dreaded schools of robot performers.

As they ran in the hallways, however, Blaine started wondering if Kurt really was your usual Warbler - he seemed too rough, too harsh.

Kurt was walking towards the doors to the auditorium and Blaine frowned for two reasons.

First, he could see that Kurt was not wearing the regulation grey pants, but black pants and boots instead of the usual loafers.

Second, the auditorium didn’t have an exit door.

“Where are you going?” he asked, “The exit is this way,”pointing toward the other way.

“I know, but my companion is in there,” Kurt retorted, a small grimace appearing on his face. “I can’t leave her alone in here now can I?”

“Her?” Blaine choked on the word. “Your traveling companion is a girl?”

As Kurt nodded, Blaine’s frown deepened. “What kind of knight are you?”

“One of a kind,” Kurt replies with a smirk as he pushed the doors open and Blaine couldn’t find it in himself to disagree.

***

Rachel was standing on the stage, facing a tall man that Kurt recognized as the leader of the dreaded Vocal Adrenaline.

Shit.

She had been captured by the Dragon.

Except she didn’t look that afraid or embarrassed. Kurt refrained from laughing at the dazed look on her face and marched toward the stage as Jesse St. James leaned forward.

Without a word, Kurt pulled Rachel from the stage, hoisting her on his back and grabbing Blaine’s hand on his way out, running as fast as he could with the two weights on his back.

He could hear Jesse calling behind him, his voice turning from angry to desperate as they managed to escape the crowds in the parking lot - as for him, he couldn’t possibly turn away his fans, and the trio kept running for a little while, Jesse’s voice calling Rachel’s name echoing in their back.

“Let me down,” Blaine asked as Kurt slowed down, and Kurt realized that he was practically holding the shorter man off his feet.

“Put me down too,” Rachel said, and her voice was so small that Kurt came to an halt. Her face was red and her eyes wet.

“Did you cry on my coat?” Kurt shrieked, putting both of them down and taking his coat off. Focused on the damage on his coat, Kurt missed the way Blaine’s face fell.

“You - you’re a - you dress flamboyantly,” he whispered as he looked at Kurt’s outfit. Sure enough, his red shirt, black tie and the black leather strap across his chest was pretty fabulous, but Kurt wouldn’t have described it as ‘flamboyant’. Then again, for a Warbler, he might as well have been wearing feathers and a sparkling shirt.

Kurt turned to look at him, his eyes turning into suspicious slits. “Oh, I see,” he said, his voice hard, “you were expecting a dapper Warbler, weren’t you?”

Blaine put his hand on his hip, his whole posture screaming “dapperly annoyed”. “Well, yes!” he cried out, before slumping against a nearby rock. “Oh no, this is all wrong,” he cried in his hands. “A noble Warbler was supposed to rescue me, not some…fairy and his hag!”

Rachel huffed in disdain at the derogatory comment and turned on her heels to look at a map on her phone - the sooner they could get back to Dalton, the sooner the two of them would be able to return to rehearsals at McKinley.

“You’re not making my job any easier,” Kurt said with a growl and Blaine straightened up on his rock and looked down at Kurt - well, tried to.

“I’m sorry, but your job is not my problem” he retorted haughtily. “You can tell the Warblers’ Captain that if he wants to rescue me properly, I’ll be waiting for him right here,” he concluded, crossing his arms over his chest and looking decidedly away from Kurt.

Kurt put his hands on his hips and huffed through his nose. “Hey, you may be more of a dodo than a Warbler, but I am taking this birdie back to its cage, now follow me, “ he said, coming closer to Blaine. “Or I’ll carry you back myself, capisce?”

Blaine’s eyes widened before frowning. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Kurt asked back with a smirk and that was a chance that Blaine didn’t want to take.

***

According to Rachel’s GPS, the way to Dalton would take them a whole day if they walked fast enough, two if they didn’t. In any case, they were past the middle of the day.

Kurt nodded along and started walking in long strides. “Let’s make it one day, shall we?” he said to no one in particular, Rachel and Blaine trying to match him.

“Not sure we can follow you, Kurt,” Rachel called and Kurt slowed down, still leading the way.

As they walked, Rachel stayed by Blaine’s side, keeping the Warbler company.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked and Blaine nodded, cocking his head to the side to keep his attention on the short girl. “Say that there is man who’s really into you, like creepily into you and sure, you could see yourself with him but it’s just so creepy and wrong and he stalked you for a while…How do you let him down real easy so his feelings aren’t hurt, but you don’t get disfigured in the process?”

Blaine pondered his answer before smiling at her. “You just tell him that he’s not your true love,” he said and Rachel frowned at that. “There’s nothing better than to be with your true - hey!” he cut himself shirt when he spotted Kurt’s shoulders shaking. “Are you mocking me, Sir Kurt?”

Kurt turned to look at them, and his smile was obvious, as well as the fact that he was silently laughing.

“I can’t wait to be at Dalton,” he huffed, barely keeping himself from stomping his feet to the ground.

“We’ll have to walk by night to get there faster,” Kurt commented and Blaine ran to come in front of him, face pale.

“Let’s not,” he said, a nervous laughter escaping him as he rearranged the blazer, disturbed in his haste.

“Afraid of the dark?” Kurt asked as he kept on walking.

“Yes!” Blaine exclaimed, opening his hands in an apologetic gesture. “It’s exactly that - always been, silly me,” he rambled and Kurt exchanged a look with Rachel.

“Have no fear, little birdy,” he finally said, patting Blaine as he passed him, “I am scarier than anything we could encounter on our way.”

“I really think we should set camp, though,” Blaine insisted, and Kurt rolled his eyes.

“I thought you were eager to arrive at Dalton - stopping for the night would only make the journey longer,” he explained slowly, obviously thinking that Blaine’s stay at Carmel had burned some of his neurones.

“We need somewhere to camp NOW!” Blaine shouted, eyes shut and hands closed in fists by his side.

When only silence answered him he opened his eyes, finding Kurt and Rachel looking startled and even on this side of afraid, Rachel behind Kurt and gripping his arm as they both seemed to shrink away from him.

“We - we can stay in that little cave, over there?” Kurt offers, pointing at an excavation in a hill nearby, and Rachel scrunched her nose.

“We can do better than that for a Warbler, Kurt, honestly …” she said, but Blaine interrupted her as the Sun properly set.

“No, no, it’s perfect,” he said, straightening his tie. “It just needs a - a homey touch,” he added with a nervous chuckle.

“Homey touch?” Kurt repeated, dubious, his eyes widening when Blaine came back with a tree branch covered in fireflies.

“Nightlight?” he replies with a soft smile. “Well, my dear McKinleyans, goodnight to you,” he offered before entering the cave and pulling the rock back in place.

“You want me to sing you a lullaby?” Rachel called after him. “I will!”

“I said goodnight!” came Blaine’s answer and Rachel jumped back.

She exchanged a look with Kurt who pointed his thumb away from the cave, as if hinting at leaving Blaine alone and she scowled at him.

“Oh come on,” Kurt whispered, a snort and a giggle escaping him, “I was just kidding!”

***

Before going to sleep, Kurt found himself talking with Rachel about everything and anything - their upcoming competition, for one.

“What are we going to do once we’re done with that quest?” she asked and Kurt turned on his back to look at her.

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” he asked, looking annoyed.

“Well, Sectionals is right around the corner - do you think we can split solos or duets or-”

“Let me stop you right there,” Kurt cut her short, “there is no “we”, no “duet” - there is me, in the spotlight, end of story.”

Rachel gasped. “You wound me, Kurt, you wound me deep - I thought we were friends!”

“That’s a horrible thing to say,” Kurt scoffed.

“Is it another of those layers thing?”

“No, it’s one of those drop it and leave me in peace thing!”

Rachel insisted, sitting up and shuffling closer to Kurt. “Why are you blocking me out?”

Kurt sat up too, taking his head in his hands. “It’s not personal - for Pete’s sake, I’m blocking everybody out!”

Kurt buried his face in his crossed arms on top of his knees and Rachel leaned forward to rest her hand on top of his head.

“What do you have against the whole world?” she asked softly, not noticing the rock moving from the cave’s entrance.

“It’s more like the whole world has something against me,” Kurt’s muffled voice came from between his arms before he looked up. “People take one look at me and go. “Aah! Help! Run! A big, flaming, contagious gay!” They judge me before they even know me. That’s why I’m better off alone,” Kurt concluded, looking away from Rachel, slightly jumping when she reached for his hand.

“When we met, I didn’t think you were a big, flaming, contagious gay,” she said softly and Kurt smiled softly at her, for the first time acknowledging how differently the girl had treated him.

“I know.”

Without a word, Blaine closed the cave again, his teeth worrying his lower lip as he went to sleep.

***

The next morning, Blaine woke up to the smell of coffee being brewed and he followed the smell - once a caffeine addict, always a caffeine addict.

Rachel was still asleep, rolled in a ball with Kurt’s coat on top of her small shape, and Kurt was surveying a travel mug on the fire, with waves of coffee smell escaping from the opening.

Blaine tried to stay silent, listening to Kurt as he sang softly under his breath until he recognized the song.

“ _But I don’t want it_

_No - I can’t want it_

_Anymore_.”

Blaine smiled and came closer to Kurt, finally making himself seen. “Good morning,” he called as he sat next to Kurt.

“Oh - good morning, Warbler,” Kurt said, looking startled. “Sorry about the song, I know showtunes are, like, offensive to you preppy boys but-”

“Oh -no, no, actually, I…I liked it,” Blaine said, a blush creeping on his cheeks.

Kurt raised one eyebrow at that, but if his Highness didn’t mind him singing, he was not going to look to closely at it.

“ _Something has changed within me_

_Something is not the same_

_I’m through with playing by the rules_

_Of someone else’s game_

_Too late for second guessing-_ ”

And then Blaine joined in, surprising Kurt out of his skin.

“ _Too late to go back to sleep_

_It’s time to trust my instincts_

_Close my eyes_

_And leap._ ”

Both boys got interrupted in their impromptu duet when Rachel sang over their voices, taking the chorus for herself.

Blaine chuckled, slightly embarrassed, but the smile on Kurt’s face made the blush go away - before making a grand return that neither commented on.

***

As they walked, Rachel realized that they had missed the crossroad they had to use to reach Dalton and they hurried to get back on track. However, the longer the day went, the more Kurt realized that they would have to spend one more night in the open before reaching the private school.

But the longer they walked side by side, the less he could find it in himself to care.

Beyond the varnish of dapperness and preppiness, Blaine Anderson was a sweet guy, smart and genuine - not a combination Kurt found often around him, and particularly not in people interested in talking with him.

Of course, Blaine didn’t have much of an option, but still: he chose to talk with Kurt and not with Rachel.

They took a break to eat some lunch - Rachel had crackers in her jacket, and Kurt found some pieces of jerky in his satchel that he had forgotten about.

As Blaine and Rachel delicately ate the ‘canapés’, as they called the jerky on top of the crackers, Kurt pulled out a couple of coupons and a sewing kit from his satchel, needing to busy his hands while he waited.

“What are you making?” Rachel asked, looking far too interested for Kurt’s peace of mind.

“A bow tie,” he replied, letting his eyes fall on Blaine for a beat before focusing again on his work. “It’s ‘Wicked’, don’t you think?” he added with a short giggle. Rachel rolled her eyes but smiled nonetheless, while Blaine came to sit closer to him.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Blaine commented as Kurt obtained the rough shape of the bow tie, the emerald fabric glistening in the afternoon sun.

“Don’t you mean ‘fabulous’?” Kurt asked, his voice sharp and just a little bit judgemental.

Blaine had the decency to blush and dropped his head. “I am truly sorry for making hasty judgement on you - on both of you, really,” he added, turning to Rachel. The short girl waved her hand to make it clear that she didn’t hold it against him, and Kurt’s lips stretched into a crooked smile.

“There,” Kurt said, holding the finished bow tie over his head. “You can have it, if you want - it’s totally your color palette,” he said to Blaine in lieu of acceptance for his apology, holding the ribbon in his hand as an offering.

“I don’t know what to say,” Blaine replied, delicately pulling the ribbon from Kurt’s hand. “Thank you so much Kurt,” he added, eyes wide and honest and so, so beautiful.

Kurt felt like an electric shock had just traveled through his body: since when did he find the Warbler beautiful? Not only was it completely preposterous, but it wasn’t even -

Who was he kidding? Of course he found the Warbler beautiful, he was the perfect example of everything he wasn’t: charming, gentleman, always perfectly poised and so manly in his prettiness…

God, how ridiculous could he get, Kurt berated himself in petto, falling in love with a man destined to have his true love first kiss with someone else?

“Let’s get back on the road,” he said abruptly as he stood up, hastily putting his sewing kit and the waist from the bow tie cut back in his bag.

In his haste, he missed the longing look on Blaine’s face, before the Warbler looked back at the bow tie in his hand, a soft smile on his face - Kurt missed it, but Rachel didn’t.

***

When the Sun started setting, Kurt started looking for a shelter for Blaine before either of his traveling companions could mention it.

Blaine felt like his heart could explode in his chest.

Sure, when Kurt had opened his door at Carmel, he had thought that he was handsome and entirely worthy of being his true love and of sharing his first kiss.

Then he had revealed his true identity and Blaine had felt like his world was falling apart.

But the more he learned about the taller man, the more time he spent with Kurt, the more it felt like he deserved to be a Warbler, if only for the feelings he created in Blaine’s heart.

Blaine wanted Kurt to be his true love. And it scared the living daylights out of him.

“It’s all I could find,” Kurt called, bringing Blaine back to the present. Kurt was standing in front of an old factory, obviously abandoned, with a sign over the doors: “Dalton Academy Linen Laundromatic”.

“And over the hills, that’s Dalton!” Rachel called, pointing at the walls visible from their vantage point. “As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure we could reach the school before night time if we wanted,” she added, lost in thoughts and Blaine panicked.

“I don’t think so,” he said, carefully approaching the short girl. “You don’t look so good, Rachel - maybe you need some rest?”

“Or a little make-over?” Kurt offered, obviously in synch with Blaine’s mindset.

“I didn’t want to say anything,” Rachel said, gulping and looking afraid, “but I realized that when I bend over, my skirt comes too high to be proper!”

“Sit down,” Kurt said, pushing her shoulders to force her down, “I’m going to take care of it!”

“And I’ll make a fire!” Blaine said enthusiastically, running to gather some wood.

“Where are you going?” Rachel cried out, sitting down and pulling at the hem of her skirt. “Oh man, I can’t feel the hem of it!”

Looking down, she realized that in her different encounters, the hem of the skirt had unraveled. “I don’t have an hem!” she cried even more loudly before slouching on her seat. “I think I need a hug,” she finally mumbled with a pout, waiting for the boys to come back.

***

Spending the evening adding a layer to Rachel’s skirt was fun for all of them, Blaine particularly mesmerized by Kurt’s agile fingers running the needle in the fabric and creating a new piece of cloth seemingly out of thin air.

“This is good, Kurt,” he said in awe and Kurt finished the new hem with a flourish of his hand. “Very good!”

“And it’s just scraps of fabrics I had in my bag, patchwork style,” he explained, preening at the compliment and laughing when Rachel twirled on her spot to show off her new skirt. “and you haven’t seen what I can do with wool. I don’t mean to brag, but I make a mean knitted scarf.”

Blaine smiled as he looked at Rachel, his eyes drifting to the school visible in the distance. “I guess the clothing will be a little different tomorrow night,” he said thoughtfully.

Kurt sighed, playing with the little thread dangling from the needle. “Maybe,” he said softly, “maybe you can visit me at McKinley sometime. I’ll sew and knit all kind of cloth for you. Scarves, gloves, bow ties, you name it,” he offered with a shy smile.

“I’d like that,” Blaine replied, the twilight making his eyes turn gold.

Rachel came back from her skipping walk around the fire and stood between them. “Isn’t that romantic? The fire, the setting sun…”

“Setting sun?” Blaine exclaimed, jumping to his feet and wrangling his hands. “Oh dear, it’s late - it’s ve-very late.”

Kurt frowned at him like he had lost his mind. “What?”

Blaine started walking backward. “The dark, wooh, so scary - I’d better get inside,” he said, chuckling nervously once again.

Kurt sighed before looking back at Blaine. “Good night, Warbler Blaine,” he said, his voice soft.

“Good night, Kurt,” Blaine replied, voice soft too, as he closed the factory door behind him.

Rachel looked between the closed door and Kurt sitting back and her eyes widened. “Ohh! Now I really see what’s going on here,” she said knowingly, sitting next to Kurt so close that she might as well be sitting in his lap.

“Ohh! What do you see?” Kurt said mockingly, eyes on the fire and trying to disentangle himself from her.

Rachel slapped his shoulder. “I don’t even want to hear about it. Listen, I’m a girl and I have a prodigious feminine instinct. And what I know,” she insisted, pulling Kurt by the chin to face her properly, “is that the two of you have feelings for each other. I could feel it,” she concluded with a firm nod of her head.

Kurt pulled his head away from her grip. “You’re crazy - I’m just bringing him back to Sebastian.”

Rachel blew a raspberry at him. “Oh, come on Kurt,” she said loudly, separating each word, “wake up and smell the testosterone! Just go in there and tell him how you feel!”

For once, Kurt looked flustered. “I - No, there’s - There’s nothing to tell,” he finally managed to say through his clumsy mouth. “Besides”, he added, standing up and walking in circles, “even if I did tell him - and I’m not saying that I do have something to tell, mind you - he’s a Warbler, and I, I am-”

“A fabulous gay man?” Rachel offered and Kurt looked back, his eyes completely blue.

“Yes, a fabulous gay man,” he replied shortly, before standing up.

“Hey, where are you going?” Rachel asked, reaching for him.

“To get more - more firewood,” Kurt replied without looking back.

As he walked away, Rachel sarcastically eyed the pile of firewood Blaine had bought earlier before looking at the factory doors.

***

Pushing open the factory doors with a great groaning and creaking, Rachel stepped tentatively inside, drawing her jacket closer around her. “Blaine,” she called into the darkness, seeing the moonlight catch on delicate cobwebs, casting long shadows of the barrels stacked in the dust-thick corners. “Blaine, it’s dark and spooky in here, please stop playing games and come out.”

Confronted by a dark head of sleek hair, shining in the moonlight, she let out a grateful sigh and reached for him. But the material slipping beneath her fingers was not the polyester of Blaine’s blazer, and she let out a horrified scream as she stumbled back, shouting, “What have you done with Blaine? Give him back, you monster, give back my sweet gentleman! Have you hurt him?”

Wheeling around, peering into every dark corner, Rachel bit the hand that slammed over her mouth to silence her, turning around ready to slap the mysterious man. “Rachel, calm down, please don’t bring Kurt running,” the man said gently, and Rachel scrambled to get away from him, charging at the door, screaming when he grabbed her and pulled her back.

“Let go of me, you’ve killed Blaine!” she yelled, flailing arms crashing into the man’s face. “Kurt! Kurt!”

“Rach, it’s me.” Pausing in the fight against his grip, the swelling scream drying in her throat, Rachel looked up into the liquid gold eyes she knew so well and her legs sagged with shock, Blaine’s hands steadying her.

“You…you can’t be Blaine,” she murmured, poking the man in the chest, tweaking the bowtie and the cardigan. “Blaine wears a blazer and a real tie and a shirt, a uniform, he’s a gentleman. You’re…you’re…”

“Fabulous.” Covering his face with his hands, Blaine hid himself from Rachel’s wide-eyed disbelieving stare as he recited, “ _By night one way, by day another; one wears a bowtie, the other a blazer. This shall be the norm, until you find true love’s first kiss, and then take love’s true form_.” As he looked up again, Rachel saw his eyes brimming with tears, and wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him, or, even better, summon Kurt to hold him until they both realized going to Dalton would be a terrible mistake. “The only way to break this curse is to share love’s first kiss with a Warbler, which is why I have to get to Dalton and kiss Sebastian before sunset falls tomorrow and he sees me like this.”

“But what about Kurt?” The words were out before Rachel could stop them, and she kept talking as Blaine’s eyes widened, “Well, you know, you two have a lot in common, and he seems to look at you like he lo- adores you whenever he thinks you’re not looking…maybe you don’t have to kiss Sebastian.”

“Rachel, I’m a Warbler, and this is not how a Warbler is supposed to look!” Blaine said, tears slipping down his cheeks. “I have to get to Dalton and Sebastian, or he’ll find out that I become this person and he won’t want me to stay!”

Rachel refrained from saying that Kurt would want him to stay no matter who he was, and comfortingly said, “You know, it could be worse. You only look this fabulous at night, Kurt looks fabulous all the time.” Reaching for Blaine’s hand, she repeated, “You don’t have to kiss Sebastian.”

“I can’t just kiss whoever I want, Rachel!” Blaine insisted, folding his arms aggressively. “Who could ever love someone who wears such ridiculous clothes? ‘Warbler’ and ‘fabulous’ don’t fit together. That’s why I can’t stay here with Kurt. My only chance to have a happy ending is to kiss a Warbler.”

Seeing the flicker of a shadow block the moonlight streaming under the door for just a second, Rachel hastily said, “Sleep on it, maybe things will be better in the morning,” and left Blaine tear-stained and curled up on the still conveyor belt, chasing Kurt out into the night. Seeing rose petals scattered along the road, she swallowed the tears clawing up her throat and chased after the disappearing silhouette. “Kurt, where are you going?”

“To Dalton!” The shout echoed back across the hills, and Rachel sank to the ground, gazing at the smoke curling up from the charred logs of their fire. Kurt would bring Sebastian back and they’d take Blaine away, and she’d never get to see them realise their feelings and fall into each other’s arms and never let go again.

The fire was still smoking when she heard the tramp of feet and jerked upright, hastily tugging at her clothes as a small army of uniformed boys ascended the hill, filing into neat lines as Kurt approached with Sebastian at his side, his hand clutching at Mercedes’ arm. Rachel had to resist the temptation to run to her side, seeing her eyes filled with fright and her beautiful jacket in shreds around her.

“Kurt!” Rachel whipped around, tears filling her eyes, as Blaine came running down the hill, his face full of joy, uniform neatly back in place. He came to a slithering halt when he saw the stony set of Kurt’s face, reaching out tentatively for him. “Are you alright?”

“Perfect, never been better,” Kurt spat, slapping Blaine’s hand away. When Blaine opened his mouth to say something, Rachel winced at the venom in Kurt’s voice as he cut straight over him, “You don’t have to say a word, Blaine, I heard everything last night. Like you said, ‘who could ever love someone who wears such ridiculous clothes?’!”

“I thought that wouldn’t matter to you,” Blaine said shyly, voice very soft, and Rachel wanted so desperately to leap between them and tell Kurt he’d got it all wrong, it was himself Blaine had been talking about, they loved each other, they just had to realise it and snatch the happily ever after dangling right in front of them.

“Yeah, well, it does!” Kurt snapped, and Rachel thought she saw tears in his eyes before he turned to beckon Sebastian closer, Mercedes trailing obediently at his side looking broken and miserable. “Blaine, I’ve brought you a little present. A Warbler, Sebastian Smythe.” Turning to Sebastian, he narrowed his eyes and held out a hand, “You’ve got him, now let her go.”

“Very well, ogre,” Sebastian said coldly, lip curling over the nickname, and thrust Mercedes into Kurt’s waiting arms, drawing Blaine towards him and crushing him against his side. “Take her and get out of my sight, before I change my mind.” He turned to Blaine, his face predatory, saying, “Forgive me, prince, but I have never seen such a delicious boy before you. This whole bashful schoolboy thing you’ve got going on - super hot.”

“Well…I…I thank you, Captain,” Blaine said, and Rachel had to look away from it, unable to stand the betrayal in Blaine’s eyes as he glanced at Kurt, drawing a trembling Mercedes away from the group and reassuring her softly, pulling the torn pieces of her jacket back into place. “I’m very flattered you sent a group so far to seek for me.”

“They deserved that dangerous crusade, trying to spy on the royalty of show choir,” Sebastian snarled, giving Rachel a narrow-eyed glare. “Not that either of them will ever ascend to our level. A silly little boy with a gay face and a fake badboy attitude and a short girl with a nose bigger than our choir room.” Turning back to Blaine, his hand slid down to touch Blaine’s ass, and Rachel glanced across at Kurt, a sob slipping past her lips seeing his expression, like someone had pulled his heart from his chest and stomped it to pieces. “Blaine, will you come back to Dalton with me and be the perfect well-behaved support for my rise to Captain?”

Blaine glanced one last time at Kurt, heartache evident in every line of his face. But just as Rachel was about to scream at both of them, to drag Kurt to Blaine by the collar and shove them into each other’s arms, he said, “Sebastian, I accept. But we must hurry this along. If our kiss isn’t today, then I won’t be leaving with you.”

“Anxious, are we?” Sebastian asked with a gleam in his eye, his gaze flickering up and down Blaine’s body, his hand squeezing at his ass and bringing a mask of disgust over Rachel’s face. “You’re right, we shouldn’t delay any longer. I know how long you were trapped in Carmel with nothing but your own hand for company.” Catching Mercedes’ eye, Rachel pretended to gag and was gratified to see the clearly traumatised girl laugh. “Come, back to Dalton and we will share true love’s first kiss.”

Blaine walked into the ranks of Warblers, his uniform blending with the rest of them, turning him into one of the crowd when Rachel knew exactly what he was hiding, desperately wishing that he might turn around in those final moments and realise it was all a mistake, that it was Kurt he truly wanted to be with. But he just said a soft, sad, “Goodbye, Kurt,” and followed the Warblers away as Kurt stubbornly continued scrutinising Mercedes’ jacket, taking out his sewing kit to make a few hasty repairs.

“Kurt, what are you doing?!” Rachel asked, stumbling over the uneven ground towards the pair as Kurt linked his arm through Mercedes’ and started walking, taking such long strides Rachel was jogging to keep up. “You’re letting him get away!”

“So what?” Kurt snapped, speeding up his walk so Mercedes got jerked along next to him and Rachel had to put on a burst of speed to get in front of him and block his path.

“Kurt, there’s something about him that you don’t know!” she exclaimed, nodding at Mercedes to keep going without them. “Look, I talked to him last night, he’s-”

“I know you talked to him last night,” Kurt said, his voice cold and dangerous. “You’re great pals, aren’t you? Well, if you two are such good friends you should go and follow him home!” He stormed off, in true diva style, and Rachel chased after him, heart sinking like lead and eyes prickling with tears.

“Kurt, I want to go with you,” she said softly, reaching for his hand, fighting not to cry when he pulled away from her and rounded on her, eyes ablaze with the anger of the broken-hearted.

“I told you, didn’t I, I don’t need you!” he yelled, and Rachel stumbled back, covering her mouth with her hand to keep the sob from escaping. “I work alone, I don’t need anyone, especially not useless, pathetic, annoying tiny divas!”

“But…but I thought-”

“You know what, you thought wrong!” Kurt gave her a last, narrow-eyed glare before he walked off, heading for the road, and Rachel turned away from him, wiping at her eyes and sniffing away her sobs. He didn’t mean it, he was just angry because he’d suppressed his feelings so thoroughly over the years that he’d become afraid of them, and now he didn’t want to admit to himself that he was in love with Blaine, let alone tell Blaine himself.

It was noon before Rachel made her way to the road, following along behind Kurt and Mercedes, and stood there for a moment, wondering if she should really follow them back. Kurt didn’t want her. No one else at McKinley wanted her. Why should she go back to a place where people tortured her?

But that was the place she loved, the place where she was surrounded by misfits like her who just wanted to get out and have their dreams come true, and she considered Kurt her best friend. With that in mind, she started walking, until she heard a roar behind her and threw herself off the road in order to avoid being run over before she was adequately famous to have thousands mourning her tragic premature demise.

Turning to look as the thunder of an engine went silent, Rachel ran her eyes over the black motorbike, flames decorating each shiny side, until she dragged her eyes up to meet those of the driver. “Need a ride, pretty lady?” came a familiar voice, and, despite everything, Rachel smiled as Jesse pulled off his helmet, curls a mess and face bright with his grin.

“Yes please,” she said softly, and blushed when Jesse threw her a helmet and pulled her closer, cupping her cheek and pulling her down for a soft, sweet first kiss. In that moment, she understood exactly why the power of true love’s first kiss could break Blaine’s curse. As she climbed onto the bike behind Jesse, wrapping her arms securely around him, she smiled against his shoulder as she said, “Jesse, I need a favour.”

***

Tearing aggressively at lengths of thread, grinding his teeth to keep from turning around and stabbing Rachel with the needle, Kurt listened to her irritating whining tone as she said, “I helped rescue Blaine, I did half the work, I get half the solos! What is with you and this song?” He could hear her smirk as she said, “Is it about how you and Blaine sang this together? Is it because of him you want this solo so badly?”

“Back off!” Kurt snapped, tucking the pieces of the jacket into place with sharp jerks. “This is my club, I’m the captain and I get to decide who gets solos!”

“This is our club!” Rachel shouted. “We share the work and we don’t argue like this over one silly song!”

“This silly song means more to me than you’ll ever understand!” Kurt shouted, Mercedes yanking her jacket from his hands before he ripped it to shreds in his rage. “Now leave me alone, you stubborn dwarf, I’m done with you!”

“Uh huh,” Rachel said, voice heavy with sarcasm. “You know, with you it’s always, ‘Me, me, me!’ Well, guess what! Now it’s my turn! So you just shut up and pay attention! You are mean to me. You insult me and you don’t appreciate anything that I do! You’re always pushing me around or pushing me away.”

“Oh yeah?” Kurt shouted back, lifting an eyebrow at her. “Well if I’ve treated you so badly, how come you’re still staying with me?”

“Because that’s what friends do, they forgive each other!” Rachel shouted as Kurt turned to storm out of the choir room. Looking back at her, he saw her with arms folded and a pointed expression, obviously waiting for him to say something.

“You’re right, Rach, I forgive you,” he said softly, hand on the door handle. Her expression softened momentarily, until he yelled, “For stabbing me in the back!” and slammed the door behind him.

From behind the choir room door, Kurt could hear Rachel still shouting. “You’re so wrapped up in layers, outfit boy, you’re afraid of your own feelings! You just left Blaine to go off with Sebastian, and all he ever did was like you, maybe even love you!”

“Love me?” Kurt shrieked, remembering Blaine’s muffled voice through the factory doors, breaking apart every daydream he’d ever dared have of being the one to give him true love’s first kiss. “He said he could never love me because I wear ridiculous clothes!”

“He wasn’t talking about you!” Rachel shouted, and Kurt was almost sure she was lying. “He was talking about…uh, someone else.” But there was no sarcasm in her tone, and Kurt eased the door open slowly to find her standing on the other side, eyes glassy with tears.

“If he wasn’t talking about me, who was he talking about?” he asked snappily, and Rachel folded her arms stubbornly over her chest. “Rachel!”

“No way, you don’t want to listen to me, so I’m not saying anything!” Sticking her nose up in the air, Rachel turned away from Kurt until he sighed heavily.

“Okay, I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, finally giving in. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I guess I just spent so long being lonely and pushing people away that I didn’t know how to be a good friend to you. I’m really sorry.” Reaching for Rachel’s hand, he squeezed it gently and pleaded, “Now will you tell me who Blaine was talking about?”

“C’mere, you idiot,” Rachel said affectionately, dragging Kurt into a hug and kissing his cheek. “Blaine wasn’t saying horrible things about you. In fact, he said some rather nice things.” There was a teasing glint in her eye as she said, “But I’m sure you don’t want to hear them through hearsay. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“But Rachel, we’ll never get there in time to stop the first kiss, and then where do I stand?” Kurt asked softly, eyes full of sadness. “I’ll just be some sad lonely boy who threw away a chance at love.”

“Never fear,” Rachel said with a triumphant smirk. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I have a way.” The door swung open and Kurt’s eyes went wide as Jesse St. James casually strolled in, putting an arm around Rachel and smiling at Kurt. “Kurt, Jesse and I found each other again, just like soulmates do!” Rachel explained, eyes bright with love. “And he’s offered to take us to Dalton so you can make Blaine yours before Sebastian does.”

Kurt trailed after Rachel, her grip on his hand keeping him moving, to be humiliatingly installed in the sidecar while Rachel rode behind Jesse and they roared off towards Dalton.

***

Standing in front of a mirror, smoothing his perfectly white shirt and straightening his tie, Blaine couldn’t recognise the boy who stood there before him. In those long years spent in Carmel, protected by Jesse’s impeccable vocals, he had become someone he didn’t recognise. He should never have turned Kurt away, throwing aside a chance at the love he’d been waiting so long to find. But then, the way Kurt had spoken, saying he would never love Blaine, and somehow his bow-tied side mattered to him, that cut Blaine deep. Kurt had brought Sebastian to him, and after all his help, Blaine was indebted to seize the opportunity, kiss Sebastian and, finally, become a Warbler.

Straightening out his pockets, he plunged his hands deep inside and drew out the bowtie Kurt had made for him, delicate green fabric, inspired by the song they had sung together, once upon a time when Blaine wasn’t about to spend his life with a sleazy boy who only seemed to want his body. For a moment, he stared at his own pale, wide-eyed face in the mirror, wondering whether he should really go through with this.

A soft knock came on the door, and a blonde Warbler looked in. “Everyone’s waiting,” he said shyly, eyes flickering over Blaine. “Sebastian’s getting impatient, says he didn’t sign up to wait this long. Are you ready?”

Glancing out of the window, Blaine could already see the light of sunset beginning to gather, and knew he could waste no more time. Reverently stroking the bowtie one last time, he pushed it back into his pocket, a talisman of Kurt and his multi-faceted eyes and all the things his smile made Blaine feel. Turning, he smiled and announced, “I’m ready.”

***

There might have been some guards at Dalton’s doors, but they all scattered like scared children at the roar of Jesse’s motorbike as he screeched to a halt, to Rachel laughing as Kurt jerked forward in the sidecar, scrambling clumsily out as Jesse helped Rachel down, kissing her hand in a gentlemanly gesture. “You go have fun beating every spare Warbler in duets, I’ll come find you if we need a boy with a bad reputation to scare them off,” Rachel said, leaning up to kiss him as Kurt averted his eyes before Jesse went running off.

As Kurt went to open the doors, Rachel chased after him, shouting, “Kurt! Kurt! You want to do this right, don’t you?”

“Oh my God, Rachel, it’s a kiss, not a wedding ceremony!” Kurt snapped, pulling at the door. He hissed out a pained breath when Rachel slapped his hand away very hard and grabbed him by the collar, dragging him around until she found the arched window looking into the choir room, tantalisingly out of reach.

“Kurt, you love Blaine don’t you?” Rachel asked, pinning him against the wall with a surprisingly strong grip at his shoulder.

“Yes.”

“You want to hold him?”

“Yes.”

“Please him?”

“Yes!”

Rachel’s eyes glinted with mischief as she opened her mouth and belted out, “ _Then you got to, got to try a little tenderness!_ ” Seeing Kurt roll his eyes, she punched him lightly in the chest and said, “Come on, Kurt, it’ll be so romantic. Blaine loves that kind of thing, it’s why Sebastian won’t ever win his love with those sleazy lines.”

“There’s just one tiny flaw in that flawless plan, Rach,” Kurt observed. “That window is at least four feet above my head. How am I supposed to know when to run in for the proper dramatic, romantic moment?”

Rachel smirked and held up one foot, saying, “Give me a boost.” Even as Kurt shook his head, she laced his fingers together herself and climbed labouriously up, wobbling precariously as Kurt raised her up so she could peer into the window.

Cupping his palms together beneath Rachel’s foot, arms quivering with the strain of keeping her hoisted as she peered inside, Kurt called up, “What do you see?”

“The whole school’s in there!” Rachel said, and moved her heel up to Kurt’s shoulder, the sharpness digging into his bone. “They’re standing in the middle of it all. Sebastian’s holding Blaine’s hand,” jealousy zipped painfully through Kurt’s chest, “but Blaine doesn’t look too happy about it. Oh my God, they’re leaning in.”

Dropping her unceremoniously in a heap, Kurt raced around the edge of the building, throwing himself into the doors to force them open, shouting, “Don’t do it!”

Breathing heavily, legs aching, face blotched red, veins humming with adrenaline, Kurt stood before the uniformed regiments of boys in his colourful clothes, searching the crowd for a gleam of the eyes he knew so well, for the boy he wanted to wake up next to every day for the rest of his life. But instead, Sebastian emerged from the centre of the crowd, mouth set in a hard line of loathing, hand squeezing like a handcuff around - Kurt’s heart skipped a beat - Blaine’s wrist where he sat on the couch.

“What do you want now?” Sebastian spat, eyes flickering disdainfully up and down Kurt’s body, picking out the flashes of loud orange in the pattern of his bowtie and the proud upward sweep of his hair. “Really, it’s one thing being alive when no one wants you, but to run in and interrupt this is just rude!”

Looking straight past him, to the boy looking huddled and miserable on the couch, Kurt said, “He’s not your true love, Blaine. He’s only doing this so he can be captain of the Warblers. He’ll never love you as anything more than a warm body.”

“And what do you know about true love?” Blaine spat angrily, arms folded over his chest, eyes betrayed as he looked across at Kurt. Though Kurt didn’t want to blurt out that he was in love with Blaine, his face must’ve spoken for him, because Sebastian let out a derisive laugh.

“Isn’t this precious?” he asked, looking around his audience, staring mockingly at Kurt. “Our little fabulous rescuer has fallen in love with the star Warbler!” Laughing, the crowd grinning and whispering and nudging with him, Sebastian proclaimed, “Fabulous and Warbler!”

Hearing a soft step, Kurt looked up and felt his whole body blush when he found Blaine walking towards him, bearing witness to his humiliation. “Is this true, Kurt?” he asked, words barely a gentle breath on the air.

“Who cares?” Sebastian spat, snatching Blaine back from Kurt’s side. “It’s preposterous!” Turning to Blaine, he wrapped an arm around him, crushing him against his body as if shielding him from Kurt. “Babe, we’re only a kiss away from a happily ever after, now kiss me.”

But as Sebastian leaned in, Blaine covered his mouth with his hand and pushed him away, looking to the horizon where an amber sunset began. “By night one way, by day another,” he murmured, and looked to Kurt. “I wanted to show you before.”

Stepping closer as Blaine moved away, Kurt was almost blinded by the bright light enveloping Blaine’s whole body, encasing him in its glow as the sun sank of view. Only then did the light release Blaine, and he hit the ground again a different boy.

A thrilled little grin crept over Kurt’s face as he took in the black polo stretched across Blaine’s chest, the bow tie resting at the hollow of his throat, his bright red pants ending above his ankles and the sunshine yellow sunglasses hanging from his belt. “This explains a lot,” he said, almost to himself, and Blaine smiled at him.

“You’re one of them!” came a horrified shout, breaking both of them from their little world, just the two of them looking into each other’s eyes. Around them, chaos reigned, wide eyes staring at Blaine with pure shock, boys scrambling to get away from him, one lying unconscious on the ground.

“No matter,” Sebastian said. moving towards Blaine with a predatory look in his eyes. “I’ll still become the Captain if you’ll only kiss me.” He grabbed hold of Blaine and pulled him in, their mouths meeting to a cry of despair from Kurt.

But when Sebastian pulled away, face twisted in a smirk of satisfaction, nothing happened. Blaine stood still, teeth clenched and eyes blazing with fury. The dull sound of Blaine’s fist flying into Sebastian’s jaw surprised them all, and someone screamed as Jesse screeched into the room on his motorbike, Rachel perched behind him and grinning from ear to ear.

“You could’ve saved the first punch for me,” she said, pouting with disappointment, and wandered over to knock Sebastian down and drive her heel into his nose.

Taking Blaine’s hand, Kurt swallowed nervously when he turned around, expectation in his eyes and smile. “Blaine, I…I love you,” he whispered, and Blaine’s eyes shone brighter than the emerging stars with happiness.

“I love you too,” Blaine replied simply, and tilted his face up to capture Kurt’s lips in the soft, sweet kiss they’d both been waiting their whole lives for.

But as Kurt tried to pull Blaine closer, he was snatched from him by the light, tendrils wrapping around Blaine, the magic sweeping out across the room and washing golden over every face, shattering the windows into a thousand silvery shards. As the magic lowered Blaine back to the ground, Kurt caught a glimpse of Rachel laughing as Jesse hurled a shoe through the last remaining window.

Taking Blaine’s hand to help him to his feet, Kurt brushed the hair back from his forehead, searching his face for some sign of distress. Blaine looked down at himself, pouring over his colourful ensemble, and back up at Kurt. “‘This shall be the norm, until you find true love’s first kiss, and then take love’s true form’,” he recited. “But I’m supposed to be beautiful.”

“You are beautiful,” Kurt whispered reverently, and he doubted he would ever see so much love in Blaine’s eyes as he slid his hands into Kurt’s and leaned in once more.

Kurt heard Rachel’s tearful declaration of,  “I was hoping this would be a happy ending,” before Blaine’s lips met his, and everything but them ceased to exist, the whole world nothing but them wrapped up in each other.

***

Pulling up outside the school gates, Kurt turned off the engine and looked over at Blaine, nestled into the passenger seat and fingers fluttering nervously over his own clothes, snapping at his suspenders and toying with the buttons on his polo. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he assured him softly, and Blaine looked up at him and smiled.

“I want to,” he promised softly, laying a hand over Kurt’s and biting his lip to smother a grin as Kurt laced their fingers together in a way that was still new and special. “All my life I dreamt of being a Warbler, of casting aside what I became at night and being one with them. Now I realise I want to be my own person. I want to be special. Dalton was my dream, but McKinley…” He looked up, eyes very bright and smile wide, and brushed a caressing thumb along Kurt’s cheekbone as he said, “McKinley is where my heart is.”

“And you don’t feel like I’m trapping you because I was the one to break the spell?” Kurt asked anxiously, finally voicing that concern that had swelled inside him since the day he’d confessed his love and watched Blaine transform into the adorable boy sitting opposite him.

“The spell wouldn’t have broken if you weren’t my true love, Kurt,” Blaine reassured him gently. “The magic knows, and I know. I love you.” Smiling softly, Kurt leaned in to kiss him, his free hand slipping slowly up Blaine’s thigh.

A knock of the window shocked them apart, and Kurt rolled his eyes as the door burst open to Rachel clambering in and sitting cheerfully between them, slinging her arms around them. “Isn’t this exciting?!” she exclaimed. “Blaine’s first day at a new school and the day Jesse and I agreed to let the world of show choir know the true story of our Romeo and Juliet relationship. What are you two waiting for?”

Kurt felt Blaine’s fingers brush his knuckles behind Rachel’s back, and smiled lovingly across at his boyfriend. “Nothing,” he answered simply. “I don’t need to wait anymore.”

Blaine gave him an equally tender smile, and Rachel cooed softly as they climbed out and walked through the parking lot as the bell trilled on the air.

TBC soon


End file.
